The Temple of Shattered Luna is supposed to be sacrosanct - peaceful - safe, even amid the wars constantly raging throughout the Caul, revolutions and conquests and civil wars alike. War doesn't always respect sacred land - but it has been a very long time since someone was foolish enough to trespass here.
Shine at Night hadn't expected to be in the middle of that fight when she set out on pilgrimage (and fleeing debt collectors) to the Caul. She hadn't expected it even as she heard rumbles and portents of war as she journeyed. She hadn't even expected it as people from the tiny hamlet supporting the temple and its pilgrims and priests hid within the temple walls.
This village is peaceful. The only soldiers here are long retired or long since wounded and unable to fight. There's forces that might be able to rescue them from a nearby city from the anxious murmurs Shine is overhearing -
They won't be here in time.
A deep calm falls over her as she coordinates getting people further in, getting doors shut and barricaded - "We can't beat them," a priest says to her, voice quiet, "We can't even really hold them off."
"Then I'll stall them," Shine says, and accepts the priest's benediction, and then -
She doesn't leave the shrine's grounds, but the outermost boundary isn't actually anything capable of holding back even raiders. It's not even capable of discouraging deer - just a mesh of silvery ropes strung high up between boundary stones. The landscape is rough though, and the temple proper is on a long promontory with steep cliffs on three sides. A broad road runs to it, though, to a welcoming archway where the sacred ground begins, and it is under that arch that Shine plants her feet, standing in front of the soldiers who are still working up the courage to do more than shout threats.
She's here to stall, so she listens to their heckling with a flat expression, chin high and gaze unimpressed, and she looks over them like a schoolteacher unable to belive she's been saddled with such poorly raised children. They're not dressed finely, nor particularly uniformly - but they don't have the look of bandits to them, or of any of the local revolutionaries.
And not all of them seem equally happy to be threatening this.
She locks gazes with one man - a quieter one, who isn't participating as much in shouting abuse at her -
"What do you think you're doing?" she demands, raising her voice so it cuts through their nonsense. "There are better places to wave your ass around if you must - though your asses are hardly impressive."
That startles them, breaks their routine and the buildup of their bravado - there's a few chuckles from men who can't be clearly blamed for it by their neighbors -
And then one of the fools starts arguing with her.
Shine is better at trash talking than any soldier, though, and she picks individuals out of the crowd with dizzying speed, heckling them more viciously than they heckle her, shaming them, capitalizing on their hesitance - they don't have a clear commander, which she takes ruthless advantage of -
And then one of them remembers that they're armed and she isn't, and notices that he came here intending to burn this place, and that they've gotten distracted arguing with a woman half his size -
Shine sees him coming, sees him drawing his sword and scolding his fellows - sees the blow come well before it arrives -
She meets his gaze and calls him a worthless coward, and she refuses to so much as flinch as he cuts her down.